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I’m going straight to food hell. I think I may have just Irish-ised the S’more. Well, not officially, but when you tally up all the tweaks and titches I’ve tainted applied to the original All-American S’more ingredients along with the added Irish country “h” to make it a Sh’more, it’s pretty damned close. Save me.

A few things mashed up at the same time for me to arrive at the intersection of Ireland + S’more street. Firstly, I was driving Geoffrey to school one morning when he asked, “Mommy, can we have sh-teak for supper tonite?” I immediately pulled the car over to the side of the road where we had a calm little chat. I asked him to repeat what he had said. He repeated, “Mom, can we pleeeaaase have sh-tttteak tonite?”

I swallowed hard.

It was inevitable. He is acquiring that auld’ countryside colliquialism, common in the southwest and west of Ireland whereby the addition of ‘h’ can heard in the dialect. I saw it coming, and we’ve already been painstakingly practicing our lispy th’s, trying to avoid ‘tree’ for three or ‘turd’ for third, etcetera etcetera. And, I am well used to the dropping of the tt’s, as in li–le (little) or bu–on (button). But, now we have sh-teak. There are so many trees and turds and I don’t know if I can keep up. I know it’s part and parcel, but I refuse to submit to the sht-eak.

Fast forward five days. I am asked by Irish food writer + advocate, Aoife Carrigy, to participate in her For Food’s Sakeevent at the Dingle Food Festival(if you haven’t been, book in for next year-accommodations go fast!). Basically, she invited a slew of food journalists, artisans, butchers and bloggers to meet her on the top of a big blue bus in the centre town and discuss food memories. Ummmmm, how fun is that?

After much deliberation, I chose to share a toothsome childhood treat which is near and dear to my heart: S’mores.

Or as my son calls them, Sh’mores.

Geoffrey and I spent a day preparing tasty biscuit, chocolate and marshmallow bites to share with the audience. I even baked homemade graham crackers for the occasion. {okay, so I didn’t have a choice in that matter.} We decided to stage a mad campfire scene in which Geoffrey would sit holding a marshmallow on a twig and pretend to roast it while Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land played gallantly in the background. Kitschy and camp, but that scene sums up my memory of being 7 at Camp Tapawingo on a summer’s night, making s’mores over a blazing fire and singing songs with a group of fellow kiddy campers.

I have dropped in sporadically , but now I have Facebook reminders.I’ll try not to be a pest but I get so much out of the way your relate and write …and I love this one to no end. Here I am , reading and savoring your blog and ignoring my own, which should tell you how much I enjoy yours. Now I am convinced,I need to put my funnier stories in mine.

I just wanted to say this litttle story about the Sh-teak, is the first thing to make me smile all day!! I’m from the west of Ireland, but I’m currently studying Vet Med in Slovakia & suffering a terrible bout of homesickness!
I can hear that Culchie “Sh-” loud and clear, I hear myself saying it when I get a bit too excited, and my own inner farmer creeps out! Thanks for making me smile, and for giving a whole new source of fabulous recipes (living this far from home means I also need to learn to cook properly!)…
Go raibh mile maith agat, agus slan leat,
Niamh!

I love this post and your blog in general! I just returned to the States from Ireland where I met my significant other’s family and farm for the first time. I will likely be in your shoes eventually, i.e. city girl on an Irish farm, but I doubt I’ll make it look half as charming/classy as you do! One thing for sure is my future children will be appreciating s’mores if it’s the last thing I do.

Oh my gosh, these have got to be the best s’mores EVER!! 🙂 I introduced my Aussies to them this summer but they’ve never heard of graham crackers, nor do they have Hershey chocolate bars, so we’re in the process of making our own Aussie-fied version. 🙂

Those look divine! Loved this post. I recently brought 3 jars of Strawberry Fluff back to the States from Westport. I declared as food. When questioned by Customs what I meant by food, I was told “In all my years, no one has ever declared marshmallow fluff”. I guess it’s not the typical Irish souvenir.

As for the dialect, my father’s use of trow for throw always made us chuckle. His roots are Kerry. Never knew it was regional. Always thought it was all of Ireland.

Thanks for this great little story, Imen. So cute about Geoffrey picking up the dialect. … And the smores, oh my – brings back so many memories of the campfire on the beach at our northern Canadian lake during those long summer evenings.

Holy, these shmore’s look shtunning. I’m quasi off added-sugar foods during the week, so this has me looking forward to the weekend even more than usual. And I love your writing — so quick, clever, entertaining. 🙂 Always a chuckle. Thanks!

This post just made me laugh out loud ! Love it, love it so much . We are an Irish family In USA and smores are our very favourite thing about New England summers ! We do ours with nutella and our neighbours believe that is a sin. These look just divine… It’s funny we have a reversal of pronunciation problems with our boys here ! Again ….just love this post !

Great post, Imen. I have always wondered what s’mores are…and graham crackers. I recently had an embarrassing experience whilst in New York when I loudly exclaimed in the middle of a busy shop ‘Oh my god, they have twinkies! I never knew what they looked like!’ – which sent everyone in the shop into fits of laughing.

OMG. Twinkies. A Blast from the PAST! I would die for a Twinkie right now….despite having a plate of kale salad in front of me Kate!!! That is a great story, love it. + LOVE “pimped-up” Irish version…must use that. THanks and hope to see you soon! x

I do not allow it Imen. Not the Shteak, turds or trees … I pull the car over every time and make them annunciate each word as it is meant to be spoken – because that is what my mother did.

We had elocution lessons as part of our school curriculum when I was in elementary school and also grew up in the country … not in the city.
(This, That, These and Those … that’s the way the TH goes!)

I moved to the US as a young woman and trust me, as nice as the Americans were (and still are) about welcoming foreigners into their country I will never forget the ribbing I got for pronouncing ‘calm’ as cam instead of ‘cawm’ or ‘vitamin’ as VIT-amin instead of ‘V-eye-tamin’. Our house is very much American-English for him and Irish-English for me so we straddle a fine line making sure they sound as American as he needs them to sound and as Irish as I expect them to sound. But no shteak here …

Now Shmores ….. we could be talked into. They look fab and I need that graham cracker recipe because we still cannot find those darned crackers here!

HA! I KNEW you’d get it Mona. Yeah…we must chat about this..I am surprised the teachers allow this actually, it goes against proper grammar in some cases. THese graham crackers are good…but you really need the graham flour to make proper honey grahams I think. See you at SavourKK. xx

Amazing post Imen, I would love to visit Ireland, my brother and family lived in Dublin, they moved and I did not have the chance to visit the country. I love your recipe and the photos are beautiful. It will be a pleasure to meet you one day Imen.
Best wishes xo